Disruption
by saint liz
Summary: They should never have met. Emma lived a rarified life that only a privileged few have access to, until she moves across the hall from an enigmatic man with a dog. Who says no one in New York ever meets their neighbours? {TEMPORARY HIATUS}
1. Chapter 1

I didn't trust the guy handing me my keys. The way his eyes lingered on me made my skin crawl, but I didn't really have any choice in the matter. "Welcome to your new home," he smiled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. I couldn't control the shudder that rippled through me, but concealed it by moving away slightly whilst doing it.

He waved a final goodbye, my creepy landlord, and disappeared into the dingy stairwell. I watched until the top of his head disappeared from my sight then turned to look at the apartment. It was dimly lit, but that could be fixed. I put my bag on the floor and checked my phone – my furniture was arriving tomorrow, so it would be a comfy night on the floor for me.

I had a few messages from my mother, checking in to see if I'd arrived safely. She always did worry, whether I was moving downtown or across the country. I let her know I was alright – basic human decency, really – then set out to the Chinese restaurant downstairs to get some dinner.

On my way back to my apartment, I shared the lift – creaking ominously – with a guy and his dog. The dog was pretty cute so I bent down to pet it. "What's her name?" I asked the guy, looking up at his face, half hidden by his black hoodie. His eyes had dark circles around them and he looked really strung out. "Flipper." He replied shortly, not inviting any more conversation.

Stung, I straightened and didn't give him a second glance until I reached my door. Then I realized he was my neighbor.

* * *

"Your place is dodge city, Emma," my friend Caroline – Caro – said as we sat on a towel on the floor of what would be my bedroom and ate takeout. We were waiting impatiently for the furniture to arrive. I'd taken a day off from work for this, which had not gone over so well with my boss, but the movers had refused to come on a weekend and my work hours were so erratic that I couldn't fix a time in the evening.

I shot her a look. "Hey, at least I live by myself now, like an adult," I said pointedly. Caro, who I'd met as a third-time senior in high school when I was a junior at Chapin, was nearing thirty but still lived in her parents' place, mainly because she was – to put it kindly – seasonally employed. This meant that she did some work for her dad or other well-meaning friends, like arranging their closets or helping them write thank you notes.

Caro threw a wonton at me. "Don't dirty the floor!" I said heatedly. She looked pointedly at the grimy surroundings, and after a pause we both burst into laughter. We were interrupted by the movers arriving, and the next couple of hours were spent arranging my furniture. Caro left and I began cleaning my apartment from top to bottom.

One thing I hate is mess. I'm very neat and organized, and I can't sleep if I know I've left dirty dishes in the sink. I think it's the standard of cleanliness you get used to when you have a battalion of maids cleaning up after you, the way I did when I was a kid.

The consequence of that is that I always smell kind of like my favorite cleaning solution, which has a chemical lavender smell. Like if lavender and Pine-sol had a kid. Even my laundry detergent is lavender scented – this was not a conscious choice, but I think I'm just drawn to those purple bottles.

When I was done the apartment looked completely different. I had hooked up a couple of floor lamps, which brightened it up quite a bit. The dirt being gone helped considerably too. Unpacking my kitchen things made me remember that I had absolutely nothing in the fridge. Grabbing my bag and keys, I made my way out, bumping hard into the neighbor with the dog.

"I have an emergency; could you please watch Flipper for me?" He said, not making eye contact. "Please." It was the second please that did it for me. Usually people only say it if they're truly desperate. No one likes to be doubly beholden to someone. "Um… yeah okay, I'll be home all day, so just knock when you get back," I said, taking the leash from him. "Should I have your number in case anything happens?"

He jerked slightly, his dark eyes looking at her with – suspicion? God, these junkies always thought she was a narc. It was probably her hair. "Y-yeah, okay." He said, taking the phone I held out to him and typing in his number and calling himself. "I'm Emma, by the way," I offered. "Elliot," he replied absently. I could tell he was absorbed in the emergency on his mind, so I waved him off. "Go, go, I've got it sorted here," I said. He took off, and I looked down at the little brown dog that had been dumped with me. Flipper looked back and tilted her head inquisitively.

"Come on, let's go get some groceries," I said resignedly as I walked down the stairs. It'd be hell trying to get the dog in. I'd probably have to pretend to have seizures or something.

* * *

Emma. He would remember that – he still didn't have a last name, but with a phone number she'd be easy enough to track. For the time being, he had other problems.

* * *

It had been five days, and I was starting to wonder if Elliot had abandoned Flipper with me. "Okay, little buddy, let's go for a walk!" I said in fake excitement. Google told me that dogs needed a ton of positive reinforcement, so I was constantly talking in a high-pitched tone and beaming when trying to get Flipper to do things. It was kind of exhausting.

I opened the door and walked out to see Elliot trying to open his door with shaking hands. "Hey, Elliot – are you okay?" It was a stupid question. He was definitely not okay. He couldn't open his door, so I went over to try and help him, Flipper following in my wake. I took the key from him and slotted it in the door, pushing it open easily. Flipper ran into the home she'd known before.

Elliot stumbled in to his apartment, dumping his backpack on the floor. I couldn't resist peeking in – it was neat, but really gloomy. Elliot was now sitting on a chair, looking at his hands and kind of moving back and forwards. I stepped into the apartment – _no, Emma, this is a bad idea_ – and went over to him.

"Should I call someone?" I put a hand on his arm, and he flinched violently away. "No – thank you." His voice was low and shaky, atonal and staccato. I stood and gave him a doubtful look. I went over to his kitchen and filled a glass with some tap water and put it next to him. "You should drink this, you might feel better." It just wasn't in me to leave someone obviously ill or in distress.

I sat on a chair opposite him. "Do you have to call in sick for work?" I looked at my watch – 7.38am blinked back at me. I had about an hour left until I had to be at work, but he didn't look like what he had could be fixed in an hour. I picked Flipper up, finding stroking her furry back incredibly soothing.

He was still staring blankly at the table in front of him, his eyes wide and round. He hadn't touched the water, and he hadn't told me to leave again. It was possible that he had forgotten I was there. I sat quietly, watching him.

After about fifteen minutes he seemed to break out of his reverie. "I need to call Angela," he said, sort of under his breath and to himself. He looked directly at me for the first time since I'd seen him. "Thanks for your help with Flipper, but I can take it from here." He seemed much recovered from before – not so shaky, for one thing – and my boss had already messaged me three times, so I nodded and left. "Just let me know if you need any help, or anything… or anyone to talk to."

I rushed into work ten minutes later – part of the reason I'd moved into the building was its proximity to my office – and slid surreptitiously into my cubicle. A few minutes' respite as I booted up my computer and checked my emails. I never had any unread ones on my computer, because of my eternally active Blackberry.

This all proved to be the calm before the storm, because a crisis broke over a planned takeover and I was sucked into an abyss of troubleshooting and trying to soothe panicked clients over the phone. At about ten that night, my boss called me into her office to get a status update.

I'd once seen her outside the office at a restaurant, dressed semi-casually in formal jeans, a white shirt and a strategically draped scarf. It'd been like spotting the Sasquatch – I hadn't been able to look away, but also lived in fear of getting attacked. Luckily, she'd paid her bill and left before spotting me.

This was the kind of relationship I had with her – grudging respect and complete and abject subservience on my end, and a volatile mix of absent neglect and terrifying rage on her end. Needless to say, I had a fairly interesting work life and almost no social life.

I left the office some time after that, pulling my bulky parka around myself a little tighter against the night chill and slipping the pointed edges of my keys between my fingers. I stopped at the bodega on the corner, nodded a hello to Mohammed behind the counter (we'd become friends some time around the fifth time I'd come by during the night shift) and picked up some last minute groceries before heading home.

I was midway between frying some onions and tomatoes and checking on the doneness of my pasta when a quiet knock sounded on my door. I looked in the peephole suspiciously. I'd had a latch and an extra lock installed since I'd moved in, but the door itself was fairly flimsy. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was Elliot. I think by now it's obvious that I have some issues with safety. Some call it paranoid, I prefer the term cautious.

I opened the door and waited for him to say something. "Can I come in?" He said finally, after looking with some surprise at my apartment. It was pretty different from his in substance if not in form – brighter, for one thing. Where his apartment seemed painted in murky shades of blue and green, mine was lit with a distinctly golden and rosy tint. I nodded and let him pass.

"I'm making some pasta if you want some – you look like you could do with a square meal," I offered, returning to my stove after triple locking the door. He looked at the boiling pasta and nodded reluctantly. "It smells really good," he said. I decided that I liked his voice, even though it had an odd cadence. "So –" both of us started at the same time. He paused and waited for me to go on.

"So, what happened to you this morning? Did you manage to go to work?" I asked as I drained the pasta. My focus on the food seemed to make him slightly more comfortable, as he leaned back a little on my couch. "I had a work emergency a couple of days ago and had to go out of town to fix it," he explained. "I'm a computer engineer, and the servers are usually in really isolated locations."

I dished out the pasta into two plates and moved over to my dining table. He walked kind of slowly over, still trying to subtly observe my apartment. He wasn't that subtle though – his eyes were too big to hide their movement. "That explains where you were the last couple of days, but it doesn't really explain this morning. Not that you need to give me an explanation, I'm just being nosy." I laughed as we started eating.

"I have anxiety, and some things just trigger it. Like this morning." He said, not saying what had triggered it. "This pasta is really good," he said as he dug in like he hadn't eaten in days. "It's just tomatoes, basil and some cheese," I replied, watching him with some amusement. He devoured the bowl in about five bites.

"Do you want some ice cream?" I had planned on watching TV until I fell asleep, but having non-work related company was cheering me up a lot more than I'd expected it to. "Uh… sure, that sounds good. What flavor do you have?" He asked. I figured he was staying mostly out of politeness, and probably also because I'd done him a favor by taking care of Flipper. I walked over to my fridge as he started washing the dishes unasked. I had a pretty impressive selection of ice cream, to be honest. I'd gone a little crazy at the supermarket the first day I moved in, since my mom never stocked ice cream in our house.

"Okay, I have gelato in salted caramel, coffee, toffee crunch and green tea, mango or lemon sorbet, and plain old Haagen Dazs vanilla. Pick your poison." He looked over my shoulder at the plethora of tubs filling my freezer compartment and laughed softly. His proximity and his laugh combined to make me feel kind of… tingly. Something I hadn't felt in a long while.

"Salted caramel sounds good, thanks." He finished washing and stacked all of my crockery on the drying rack. "Your apartment is so much nicer than mine," he commented as he looked at all the miscellaneous accessories I'd accumulated over time – pictures of my friends and family scattered around the apartment, tons of souvenirs from my travels, and various items that I'd found online and bought with a new homeowner's lust for the material.

I dished out the ice cream and sat on my couch, switching on the TV. We sat in companionable silence as we ate our way through most of a tub of gelato and watched an old rerun of _Friends_. I guess after a while I fell asleep, because when I woke up I was leaning on his shoulder and covered with the heavy wool blanket I kept on side of my couch. My bowl of ice cream had been placed on my coffee table.

I sat up immediately and he awoke with a start. "Oh, shit, what time is it?" He said. His voice was all rough and scratchy and his hair had become a little flat at the back. I pointed to the clock on the wall directly opposite us, which indicated it was halfway between midnight and sunrise. "I'd better go," he said as he scrambled to his feet. "Thanks for the food and – and the company," he said almost shyly as he unlocked my door and slipped out.

After relocking my door, I stumbled into my bed and fell into a deep sleep interrupted too soon after by the obnoxious beeping of my alarm. I never did find out what he'd come over to tell me.


	2. Find You

Her name was Emma Murdoch. He'd seen her name on one of the letters on her table, and had intended to go home immediately and hack her. But he'd been kind of hungry, and her apartment had been a lot more welcoming than his, that's for fucking sure. Maybe this was the cure to his crippling depression – making his apartment nicer. But that was buying in to the capitalist bullshit, wasn't it? Buy this, and you'll be happy.

But it wasn't surprising that Emma bought into capitalist bullshit. Her parents were old money with no occupation. The kind of people who contributed little to society other than paying for the ten thousand a plate for their daily charity galas. He wondered why she'd moved to this shitty building if she could be living it up in a Park Avenue mansion.

He'd found her on Facebook, LinkedIn, and even a Spotify account. She was too public – like she had no secrets. But everyone has secrets. Her Facebook had a lot of pictures of her with friends, and tons of people posted on her wall and sent her messages. She was the kind of person who kept in touch with her kindergarten classmates.

Her password was one of the more difficult he'd hacked. One of those computer generated ones – c&5Lf0D. But she used the same one for everything. Her emails were mostly from work – corporate bullshit he wasn't interested in. She got a lot of order confirmation emails – online shopping addict – and she had subscriptions to like five different food magazines. Her mom sent her those clickbait links that said shit like Five Ways Eating Gluten Is Slowly Killing You. She was clean. So separate from the world he had immersed himself in, more like Angela.

There was no way she understood how it felt to be alone, but maybe that was good. She had drawn him in, welcoming but not prying. She hadn't asked him anything deep, had let him feel safe – that fucking triple locked door wouldn't stand up against the men in black if they really wanted to get him, but he let himself pretend. Also she was a really good cook, so he had kind of lost himself in the pasta.

When she'd fallen asleep on him, he hadn't felt the immediate revulsion that he usually did, that automatic flinch that he couldn't stop, could only minimize so that it didn't offend. He couldn't move away without waking her, something he was surprised to find he didn't want, so he'd focused on watching the TV – some documentary about the planets. She started shivering almost the second she'd fallen asleep, so he'd pulled a blanket over her. Then he must have fallen asleep, because he'd woken up. No dreams, that had been good.

It was Saturday. He fed Qwerty and Flipper, took his dose of morphine, and sat numbly on his couch, interrupted a while later by a knock on the door. Shayla, with his re-up. Since he'd followed Mr Robot out at the Church Avenue stop to Coney Island, he hadn't been able to keep to his self-imposed dosage. He opened the door, and found Emma on his doorstep.

"Hey, I was wondering if I could take Flipper for a walk," she offered. She looked kind of antsy, hopping around from one foot to another. She was dressed in yoga pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie, her sneakers emblazoned with a white swoosh. He looked in to his apartment, saw Flipper at his feet, tail wagging crazily fast. Flipper liked Emma.

"Yeah, okay," he said. "Uh, you can come in if you want. I have to get her leash." Thankfully he'd closed all the windows with her information. Emma stepped in and sat on the couch as she waited. He was fast, but for some reason he didn't want to push her out of his apartment, so he pretended to be looking for a plastic bag.

"So, what do you usually do on the weekends, Elliot?" He could see her looking around his crappy studio. Hers had been a one-bedroom, so he hadn't been able to see into her bedroom. "That's an intense computer set up, I just have a laptop." She had this thing where she tapped her feet in a way that should have been annoying. _Tap. Tap-tap. Tap._

Usually on weekends he hacked other people or got high and watched movies. But he couldn't tell her the first one, so the second one it'd have to be. "Get high and watch movies." He could see her raising her eyebrows in his peripheral vision. He braced himself for judgement. "Alone?" She asked.

It wasn't a question he'd expected. He wasn't sure what she was asking – did she want to get high and watch movies with him, or was she pitying him? Her body language and facial expression didn't reveal much – she just looked interested in his answer, not exactly hopeful or sad. He decided – for Krista, who kept telling him to try – to give it a shot. "You want to watch with me?"

The corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. He'd noticed that before, that when she smiled it started with just the right corner. If she found something really funny, her eyebrows would kind of raise up in the middle and she'd laugh. Most things just got the corner smile though. "Sure, what are you watching? Oh, but I kind of wanted to go for a walk first though."

Blinking, he remembered that she'd come to get Flipper. So it was true, dogs really did help you pick up women. "We could go together – I have to get some stuff from the grocery store, anyway," he said hopefully, controlling his tone so that it sounded nonchalant. Wow, playing it cool. What a flashback to high school.

Nodding, she bounced up from his couch – he made himself look away from her breasts as she did so – and they got Flipper ready. They were halfway out the building when they bumped into Shayla. "Hey, Elliot," she called to him as they neared her. He walked over as Emma waited on the steps.

"Shayla, what do you want?" He said, slightly rudely. It was fucked up, but he was starting to like Emma and he didn't really want the two of them to interact. Shit, they all lived on the same floor. This was really, really fucked up. He felt kind of guilty, seeing Shayla's hurt face. He should never have slept with her that day. The day when he met Mr Robot. He fought the morphine haze.

"Uh, I just wanted to know when it'd be a good time to pass you your stuff. Asshole." Shayla retorted, holding out the instantly recognizable orange bottle of pills. "Shit Shayla, one day we're gonna get busted if you keep doing drug deals out in front of the apartment building in broad daylight." He took the pills from her and dug into his pocket, handing over the cash he'd had ready since earlier.

Shayla nodded towards Emma. "Who's the chick?" There was a hint of jealousy in her voice, which Elliot chose to ignore. He wasn't sure if Emma could hear them – it was a pretty noisy day, and she was looking at her phone, so he decided that she probably couldn't. "She's our new neighbour. She's helping me take care of Flipper."

Shayla looked confused – oh, yeah, he hadn't seen her since that morning. "My new dog." He gestured in the direction of Flipper – and Emma – with one hand. "We're going for a walk." He added lamely.

"Oh," Shayla said softly. He distantly wished he wasn't on morphine so that he could empathise with her, so that he would know what to say. But then that wouldn't have happened anyway, would it? If he wasn't numb from the morphine, he'd be freaking out about everything that had happened – Emma coming over, the two of them going for a walk together, the plans to hang out, bumping into Shayla. It was all so fast.

His mind had drifted whilst Shayla was talking to him, and he only caught her last few words. " – next time you need a refill, just let me know," she was saying with false bravado, giving him a cocky smile and walking around him. He watched her go in to the building, shoulders hunching as she passed Emma, and then just watched as Emma walked towards him, Flipper in tow.

"Shall we go?" She gave him a full smile this time, both sides of her mouth turning up. When she smiled, her left cheek had the facial muscle deformity also known as a dimple. He liked that even when he zoned out in front of her she just waited for him to return. She never rushed him with answers, or waved a hand in front of his face. At least, not yet.

They started down the road towards the grocery store, pausing every now and then for Flipper to sniff around. "Was that one of the neighbours?" Emma asked. He looked sideways at her – her expression was innocently curious, but he thought he detected a sense of jealousy.

"Yeah, Shayla. She lives on our floor." _And she's my drug dealer. And we had sex._ He thought to himself, stopping himself from being too honest with her. Something about her openness and innocence made him want to tell her things he hid from the rest of the world.

She nodded thoughtfully, then started talking about something else. He couldn't help but tune out, since she was talking about like, the weather or something. It was weird that all that shit could go down with F Society and then be walking down the street on a sunny Saturday with his pretty neighbour and his tiny dog, like nothing was going on.

* * *

For some reason I hadn't been able to stop myself from knocking on Elliot's door. I'd meant to go for a run, then get lunch with my friends. I found myself texting their group chat that I wasn't feeling well and to go ahead without me. "Hey, I was wondering if I could take Flipper for a walk," I heard myself saying, cringing inwardly. God, what a flimsy pretext. He was sure to see through it.

I'm not blind, I know Elliot was pretty objectively cute. And I'm fairly certain that I have a crush on him. And also fairly certain that he could tell. I don't know anything about him though, except for the fact that he was most likely a drug addict – and not something fairly societally acceptable like weed, but probably something hard. The kind of drugs that never got offered to girls like me.

Watching movies with Elliot was an odd experience. He'd chosen movies he obviously knew really well – Back to the Future, Hackers, and surprisingly, The Notebook. He was completely silent whilst watching, except to ask me every now and then if I wanted something to drink. After the first movie, we'd gotten hungry and Elliot had made grilled cheese sandwiches that we ate whilst watching the next movie. It was kind of like being at a sleepover when you're a kid – excited and apprehensive all at once.

At the same time, I couldn't stop thinking about Shayla, the girl we'd seen on the stoop. She was fairly obviously Elliot's drug dealer – her less than subtle handover of a bottle of pills had made that clear – but the way they'd been talking had been a lot more personal than professional. And she lived in our building, on our floor. I realized that I'd started referring to it as _our_ floor, when she'd definitely moved in much earlier than I had. It was _their_ floor.

Elliot was so quiet that if it hadn't been for his randomly twitchy movements I could have imagined I was watching the movie by myself. Was this insane? I couldn't help but want to be close to him, and know what he was thinking – God, what on earth was he thinking about? He was such a closed book. Something had to give.


	3. Hurt

**Chapter 3**

I got home from work that day to see Shayla leaning against my door. "Hey. You're Elliot's girl, right?" She asked, looking kind of pissed off and nervous at the same time. I unlocked my door slowly, turning that over in my mind. I wasn't Elliot's girl – we'd spent time together, and I felt a connection to him, but in reality I knew almost nothing about him. We'd watched movies together in silence. It was comforting, but incomplete.

"I'm his friend, yes," I said finally. Shayla shifted from foot to foot, impatiently. "He's in the hospital. Do you want to come with me, to visit him?" The rush of panic in that shot through me put paid to my veneer of nonchalance. "What happened to him?" I asked, half-certain that it was an overdose, and that Shayla wanted me to go to check on him as she was his drug dealer.

"He fell off the pier at Coney Island," she said. "Come on, we haven't got all day," she said as she took off for the stairs. I slammed my door shut and ran after her, all the way to the street where we hailed a cab. When we got to the hospital, we made it all the way to the door of the hospital room before she turned to me and said, "Oh, and… they think he jumped."

* * *

He looked peaceful in unconsciousness, without the constantly flickering eyes and clenched jaw that betrayed the tension that usually filled him. Shayla and I took up posts in opposite sides of the bed, in silence. Every now and then I'd sneak a look at her, noticing how pretty she was, and how worried she was about Elliot.

After a while I pulled out my phone and started checking my emails and social media, replying to some from my friends asking me where I was. I'd been supposed to meet them that night, but had flaked out again. It was the second time I'd ditched my friends for Elliot, and he wasn't even my boyfriend.

After a while, Shayla left after leaving her number with me, saying she needed to walk Flipper, who Elliot had left at her apartment earlier that day. She also mentioned seeing another girl with Elliot, who he'd left with. It was pretty late at night, and I propped my knees up on the tiny chair, leaning my forehead against them. Why did I feel so drawn to this guy, who apparently had a couple of girls on rotation?

I woke with a start when the door opened, letting in a nurse who checked Elliot's vitals. It was dark out, and she looked tired but still made the effort to talk to me. "Is this the first time your boyfriend's been in the hospital like this?" She asked as she took his blood pressure. I shook my head. "He's not my boyfriend, I'm his neighbour. And I don't know if he's ever been in the hospital." I said, looking at the still unconscious man.

"You've been here an awful long time for just a neighbour," she commented idly. She saw me looking at him, and softened. "Let me tell you something, first," she said. "I've been working here for seventeen years, and I've seen everything from little kids with cancer to men cut to shreds in gang fights. But there's always something that makes me really sad about a young person like yourself, sitting in the hospital all night when someone they love – and yes, I said love, I know that look you gave him – gets doped up on drugs and tries to kill themselves."

"He was on drugs?" I asked, eyes growing round. She nodded sombrely. "Now, I won't say it's the worst thing I've ever seen, but the withdrawal is no walk in the park. I won't tell you anything more about his medical history – I'll get fired, and it's up to him if he wants to tell you, and up to you if you want to know. But it's not easy being with a drug addict. And that's the truth." She gathered up her things and left, giving me a half-smile just before the door closed.

I leaned towards Elliot and touched his hand gently, knowing that I might not get such an opportunity again, as he hated human touch. Growing slightly bolder, I pressed my hand lightly against his cheek, my thumb stroking the slightly stubbly surface. I sat back in my chair, one hand on the thin wool blanket draped over his prone body, and watched him sleep.

Time ticked by slowly, and I started thinking about leaving. It was becoming morning, and my body was aching and exhausted from the cramped position I was in. "Emma?" My head shot up, hearing Elliot. I hadn't even noticed him waking up. His voice was rusty and dry, and I hurried to get him some water. "You're awake! I'd better call the doctor," I said as I tipped the cup gently against his lips.

"Call Krista," he said, after taking a few greedy sips. "Dr Krista Gordon." He leaned back and looked up at me, his eyes slightly glassy. "What are you doing here, Emma?" I put the glass of water down, taking the opportunity to look away from him so he couldn't see that I was hurt. I didn't realise that my hand was on the bed, and jumped slightly when his fingers brushed mine.

"Shayla told me you were here," I said. "And – and that you jumped. Why did you jump, Elliot?" I couldn't help my eyes filling with tears. He didn't hear me, focusing on what I'd said at first. "Shayla, is she okay?" I stepped back from the bed, crossing my arms against my chest protectively. With surprise, I noticed that I was still wearing my office clothes.

"She seemed fine," I said finally. I guessed I wouldn't get an answer about the jumping. "I'll call your doctor, and Shayla, okay?" He nodded and smiled at me, this sleepy smile that made my heart race, before his eyes closed again, his mouth forming a silent shape that I couldn't make out.

I called the two women and updated them on his status, before leaving, taking one last look at him as I walked out.

* * *

The next time I saw him, he was with Shayla walking up the stairs. I'd just gotten home from a run, and was sweaty and tired. I nodded to them as I unlocked my door, fingers fumbling in my hurry. They were having a pretty intense conversation about someone being on murder charges, and I heard Elliot asking if Shayla was okay.

"Emma, thanks for calling me just now," Shayla said, catching me just as I was about to slip into my apartment. Elliot looked between the both of us, confused. "Emma called me at the hospital – she waited with you until you woke up, the first time." I couldn't help myself, and made eye contact with Elliot. He was still scratched up and bruised, but looking better than someone who'd jumped off a pier had any right to be.

"You were at the hospital?" He asked. I had my door open, and looked at my shower longingly. "Yeah, just for a while though," I said coolly. "Wait, if you're not home then what happened to your doorknob?" I asked, tilting my chin in the direction of his apartment. He looked quickly towards it, and pushed the door open. "Wait, there might be someone inside –" I said in a panic as he entered, Shayla close behind him.

I ran into my apartment and pulled out my gun, a Glock 43. I'd seen some pretty shady characters hanging around the building, and didn't want to take any chances. I walked to Elliot's apartment and entered quietly, just in time to see a girl, not Shayla, asking Elliot what happened to his face.

"What's going on?" Shayla asked. I looked around the room from where I stood on the edge. "Well, I'm not the princess of social graces, but typically it goes something like "Hi, this is Darlene.""

"Stop." Elliot said. "You need to leave." I hadn't heard him angry before and the tone of his voice made me shrink to the side of the doorway, so that I stood half hidden. Darlene focused her eyes on me, and said, "Babe, seriously, we have a lot of shit to discuss, so if you wouldn't mind –"

"Get out." Elliot said shortly, moving aside as Darlene went to collect her backpack from his table. "Are you in or out?" She said to me as I hovered uncertainly at the door. I looked at Elliot, and his unforgiving stare, and then at Shayla who he'd moved so protectively to cover from Darlene. "I'm out," I said softly, turning away as she shut the door. I had so many questions, but he'd never shown the inclination to trust me – it was Shayla he wanted, Shayla who was his emergency contact. They obviously had a strong relationship before I'd entered the picture, and I wasn't the kind of girl who stepped in the middle of that.

I went back to my apartment, where the door had been left open. "See, that's the kind of locks he should be getting," Darlene said from behind me. She'd shouldered her backpack and was looking at me through the lashes of mascara and eyeliner that gave her a fierce look. "I'm Darlene, Elliot's sister," she said, sticking a hand out. Oh.

"I'm Emma, his neighbour," I offered, taking her hand and shaking it quickly. Her eyes drifted down and saw the gun in my hand. "You look ready to protect him," she commented. "That's good, he needs someone to look after him." I backed into my apartment. "He's got Shayla," I said stiffly as I put one hand on the door. "I'm just… well, I'm just the girl who lives next door. Bye Darlene." I shut the door and triple locked it, put the gun back in its hiding place and took a shower. It was a new day, and I had to go to work.

* * *

I came home early from work to see Elliot leaning against my door. "Hey Emma, can I talk to you?" He said, looking slightly nervous. Against my better judgment, I opened my door and let him in. "My boss invited me to a dinner party at his place tonight – do you want to come with me? As – as my girlfriend?" He said after he'd sat on my couch, the couch we'd fallen asleep together on the first day I'd met him.

I paused in unpacking my bag. "What?" I said stupidly, not believing my ears. "Do you want to come with me to my boss' house as my girlfriend?" He repeated. I ran a hand through my hair, dislodging a few pins I'd forgotten and completely messing up my hair. "Elliot," I sighed. "I don't know anything about your life, and more importantly I think you have something going on with Shayla, your other neighbour, who is also my neighbour."

He looked up at me, eyes wide. "There's nothing going on with me and Shayla, we're just friends. She's just someone I can really trust." He said. I looked at him, and really thought about it. "Okay," I said finally, noting the look at happiness that spread across his face. "But you have to tell me what's going on with you – why you jumped off the pier. And also… I won't be your girlfriend. You have to take me out on a proper date first."

"A bunch of guys jumped me and pushed me off when I was sitting on the pier," he said. "Why would they do that?" I asked, shocked. He shrugged, looking down on the floor. "I guess they saw an easy target, just sitting there."

"And why were you sitting there?" I asked. "I was thinking about my dad, and uh – how he died," he said softly. He'd never mentioned his family, although I'd met his sister. "He had leukaemia, and he didn't want me to tell anyone. I told my mom in the end, and he was so mad at me… I never got the chance to say sorry."

"Oh, Elliot," I said as I walked over and sat next to him, taking one of his hands. "Oh, sorry," I said, dropping it quickly, remembering that he had a dislike of people touching him. "It's okay, we can hold hands," he teased, reaching out for mine. Emboldened by this voluntary touch, I leaned my head on his shoulder. "How old were you when this happened?" I asked.

"I was eight," he said. "You were so young," I commented. He nodded, turning to me and pressing his nose against my hair. "But he didn't forgive me," he said, closing his eyes. I rubbed my thumb against his comfortingly.

"You stayed at the hospital with me all night?" He asked, as if suddenly remembering. I nodded, turning to face him. He smiled and leaned down, touching his forehead against mine. "I don't think anyone has ever cared about me that much," he said. Our eyes were locked on each other's, and in a blink we were kissing.

His hands were warm against my skin, as he slipped a hand under my shirt to rest on my back. I leaned in, moving my leg so I was straddling his lap as I unbuttoned his shirt and broke away from his lips to press tiny kisses across his collarbone. I could feel him pressing against me, and I lifted my arms reluctantly from around his neck so that he could pull of my shirt.

"Oh god, Emma," he groaned as I unbuckled his pants, his hips lifting so I could slide them off, along with his underwear. My skirt was bunched up around my hips, and he put his hands on my underwear, waiting as if for permission. "Take it _off_ , Elliot," I said, shifting so that he could pull them down. Once it was off, I positioned myself and slid down onto his erection, sighing with relief as I felt him fill me.

I'd wanted him for as long as I'd known him, on some level. I arched into his chest as he moved below me, our bodies melding into one. His hands were tight around my waist, gripping me close. Our lips were joined, and my hair fell around us like a curtain blocking us out from the rest of the world. "Don't stop, Elliot," I gasped as I felt myself nearing climax. He moaned my name and started thrusting harder into me, as I moved down to meet him in the middle.

I opened my eyes and looked at Elliot, whose eyes were closed in concentration. Unable to help myself, I leaned down and took his bottom lip between my teeth, biting lightly. The sound he made as he came inside me, and the warmth that spread within me, brought me to the edge and suddenly, I was flying.


	4. Clean

"So Elliot, do you think you should introduce us?" We were standing outside Elliot's boss' house, a grimly industrial building with a huge metal sliding door. Elliot's colleagues were standing beside us. I knew they were named Angela and Ollie, and that Angela was Elliot's childhood friend, who'd helped him get the job. Elliot had told me about them on the train ride over. But I guess he'd never mentioned me to them.

"Emma, Ollie and Angela." He said awkwardly. I shifted so that the bottle of wine I'd grabbed from my fridge as we'd left my apartment was in my left hand, and reached out to shake theirs. "Hey, nice to meet you guys." After a while, Ollie knocked hard on the door and it was opened by Elliot's boss' boyfriend, Perry.

After the introductions and greetings, we sat at the kitchen island. "Elliot, how long have you and Emma been together?" Perry asked, smiling encouragingly at Elliot, who was standing behind me. He looked down at me and stammered, "Uh, just – I mean, we've known each other for a while…" I turned to Perry and told him brightly, "This is our first date! Well, it's our pre-first date." Perry looked slightly perplexed, and asked what a pre-first date was, but Elliot's boss interrupted and asked Elliot to go with him to check on the grill.

"So, Emma, how did you and Elliot meet?" Angela asked, flipping her long blonde hair over one shoulder. "I'm his neighbour," I offered. "I actually just moved in like a week or so ago." Angela narrowed her eyes at me. "That's pretty fast," she said. I sensed that she was very protective over Elliot, but she was being kind of unpleasant.

"Um… yeah…" I said distractedly, changing the subject as I turned to Perry and Lloyd and started talking about benign topics, like the weather. Angela and Ollie started talking to each other in urgent, low tones, seeing like they were arguing with each other. I sighed as I took a sip of my wine. This was winding up to be a really awkward dinner.

* * *

After we ate, Angela pulled Elliot to the side and started talking to him. They were reminiscing about their childhood, so I stayed behind with the rest and listened as they spoke about computers and Gideon showed us photographs of his recent holiday on his phone.

My eye was drawn to Elliot when he stood up suddenly and turned on the TV to show the newscaster talking about the 1993 Washington Township toxic waste leak, which led to deaths of a number of employees from leukaemia. I reached over and put a hand on Elliot's arm. "Are you okay?" I asked him quietly as I saw his expression return to the tense, unhappy one that he'd worn before today.

I followed after him as he walked out of the apartment, saying a rushed goodbye to the rest. He was silent as we walked to the main road, where he flagged a cab down. I got in and waited for him to enter. "Emma, I've got something I have to do," he said distractedly. I could feel him slipping away, his mind completely focused on something I had no concept of. "You go ahead home first; I'll talk to you tomorrow. I have something I have to do."

I sat in the cab, staring at him dumbly. "What's wrong, Elliot? Is this about the news piece on Terry Colby? Please, Elliot, talk to me!" He shook his head, eyes already looking away. I could feel the burning of tears building up in the back of my throat, and I fought them down hard. I wasn't the kind of girl who cried in cabs over boys. It seemed like so long ago that we'd been in my apartment, not mere hours. I'd felt so close to him, so warm in the knowledge that he was mine, back then. Now I knew there was still so much I didn't know about him.

He shut the door and I leaned against the backseat after telling the cab driver my address. I saw him in the rear view mirror as we pulled away, his body shrouded in his hoodie and jeans against the darkness of the night. He started walking away.

* * *

What do people do when they're hurt? They generally have two choices. One, they can hit back. Two, they curl up and protect themselves. I've always been more the kind to do the second. Instead of going home that day, I'd gone to my parent's house on the Upper East Side. They were away, but the comfort of my room, which was still the same as when I was a little girl – pale green wallpaper, a huge sleigh bed, the dollhouse my dad had built for me when I was six – was immeasurable.

I took a hot shower, scrubbing off the rejection and embarrassment I felt with rosemary and mint scented soap, then climbed into my bed, which was always made up with clean sheets. I had a text message from Elliot, but I didn't want to read it. I lay under my sheets, my childhood surrounding me, and cried.

* * *

When I went back to my apartment the next day, there was no sign of Elliot. My eyes were red and puffy from the night before, and I silently tidied up the mess I'd left when I'd gone for the dinner, filled with hope. There were clothes draped all over my bed, the glass of water I'd gotten for Elliot whilst he waited for me to get dressed.

I called in sick to work and sat on my couch, watching daytime TV until my takeout arrived. I opened the door and paid for it, and had just thanked the delivery man, when Elliot opened his apartment door, Flipper running out excitedly. Cutting short my conversation with the delivery man, I slammed my door shut and triple locked it, going back to the couch with my food.

After a couple of seconds, I heard Elliot knocking on my door. "Emma, can I talk to you?" I turned up the volume on my TV until it drowned out his voice. "Emma, please!" I walked over to the door and left the latch on, opening it slightly. "Leave me alone, Elliot," I said. I could see through the gap that his eyes were rimmed with the same purple bruises that he'd had the day we'd met. He put his hand against my doorframe so that I couldn't slam it again.

"Can I explain, please?" I stared at him suspiciously. "Explain what, Elliot? How you ditched me in the cab and fucked off to God knows where after walking out of a dinner that _you_ invited me to and where I didn't know anyone? Or why you look like you got punched in both eyes? Because I think I know the answer to the second one."

"The first one, then," he said. His voice sounded so tired, and each of his words was cut off as if they hurt him. Only partly because of curiosity, I opened the door for him. "Okay, explain." I stood there with my hands crossed against my chest. Flipper ran into my apartment excitedly, jumping up and down. I relented and picked her up, stroking her dark fur.

"Washington Township – the toxic waste thing – that's how my dad died," he said. "He got leukaemia from working for E Corp, and that guy, Terry Colby, was one of the people who covered it up. That's why I was upset, because it reminded me that he'll probably never have to answer for his crimes."

I shook my head. "Just because you're upset doesn't mean you can just up and leave without telling me where you're going or why, Elliot," I retorted. "If I'm going to be your girlfriend, you have to talk to me." Elliot smiled, but his eyes looked just as tired as they had before. "So you're my girlfriend? What happened to our needing to have a first date?" He said.

I ignored his subject-changing tactics. "Where did you go last night, then?" I asked challengingly. He looked straight at me, his eyes compelling me to trust him. "I went home," he said. It seemed that that made two of us. I put Flipper down, and reached out to trace the shadows under his eyes. "There's something else I want to talk to you about," I said softly.

"I know you're a drug addict." I said abruptly. "And I won't – I can't – be with you if you continue on that path. It's just too hard." He stared at me, and unconsciously his hand went to brush his nose. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, I'll stop," he said. I put my arms around him and gave him a hug, leaning my head against his chest. "I'll do whatever I can to help you get over it, okay? I'm here for you." I said, half muffled by his hoodie.

I tilted my head up to press a kiss to his lips, enjoying the feeling of warmth and comfort that came from being cocooned in his arms. "I'm sorry about last night," he whispered. "It won't happen again. And I'll try for you, Emma. I will."

* * *

I woke up to my phone buzzing. "Emma, can you come – please – I'll send you my location." Elliot's voice was shaking, and it scared me. "Okay, I'll come right away. What's wrong? Do you want me to bring anything?" He hung up without answering, and within seconds I got a message with his location.

I arrived at a dodgy motel off the highway an hour later, and knocked on the door tentatively. I had my gun in my bag, which also contained a set of clothes and some food. I had no idea what to expect. The door opened, revealing a couple of guys standing there whilst Elliot lay in the bed, shivering and sweating.

"Are you Emma?" They asked suspiciously. I nodded, pushing my way past them to the room and walking over to the bed. "Elliot, what happened to you?" His eyes are open and he keeps fidgeting. "Emma, what are you doing here?" He said. He'd forgotten that he'd called me, that he'd asked me to come here.

The guys are sitting on the couch and watching TV loudly. "Hey, can you give us a minute?" I asked them, and they shuffled out, casting dubious looks at Elliot on the bed. I went to the bathroom and wet a towel, brought it back and began sponging Elliot's forehead with it. He was burning up, but he kept shivering. "Is this withdrawal, then?" I murmured to myself. That nurse wasn't lying. This was rough.

Elliot mumbled constantly, his eyes varying from being opened extremely wide and flickering from side to side to being tightly closed. I couldn't make out what he was saying. Every now and then his entire body tensed, and his shoulders lifted as if he was trying to protect his neck from the outside world.

I crawled into bed next to him, and wiped down his sweaty skin with the top sheet. There was nothing I could do except wait it out with him and be there with him, like I'd promised. The guys came back and started arguing in low tones about whether to stay or leave. I still had no idea who they were, but there seemed to be something they wanted to do urgently.

"I've got him," I told them, acting confident but really scared out of my mind. "You guys can go ahead. I've got him." They took one last look at Elliot and bolted, slamming the door behind them. Elliot groaned and levered himself into sitting position. "I just need one more hit, and then I can do it – it has to be now – it has to be _today_ ," he choked out.

* * *

Elliot had been hallucinating hard for hours, and then he'd passed out for a while. I'd heard my name, Angela's, Darlene's, and something weird – _Mr Robot_. I figured it was probably a toy from his childhood. At one point of the night he'd shot up, eyes wide open, and had started saying "They all left me, I'm alone," over and over again. I'd put my arms around him and tried to soothe him, but he hadn't heard me.

When he woke up the next time, he was lucid. "Emma, you're still here," he said. I hadn't slept the whole night, worried that he'd throw up and choke to death on his own puke – I'd read about that happening before. He was pale and looked exhausted, and I imagined I looked just as tired. "I said I'd be here for you," I replied, holding his hand tightly. "I dreamt that we were going to get married," he said, slightly dazed, before falling asleep again.

Sometime around daybreak, the guys came back. The tall black guy made a mixture for Elliot, making him drink seven of them. "I'm gonna go pull the van around, make sure he keeps chugging them," the guy said, before leaving. "Emma, you should head on home," Elliot said to me. "Where are you going?" I asked, confused. There was no way he looked well enough to go anywhere but home.

"I have something to do," he said, avoiding my eyes. Great, more secrets. "I'll talk to you about it when I get home later," he said, seeing my expression. I nodded coolly and booked a cab on my phone. Before I left, I bent down and held his face in my hands. "Don't do anything stupid, okay? Come back to me." I kissed his forehead, then the tip of his nose, then his lips. His eyes held mine for a while, then he nodded. "I'll come back to you."


	5. Escape

He wasn't picking up his phone, which wasn't especially unusual. _Are you okay?_ She messaged him, leaning back in her chair at the office. She'd been trying to keep her mind on her work all day, but it kept drifting back to Elliot – he'd been so cold – literally freezing, skin taking on the chilly temperature of the recently departed - the night before that sometimes she'd panicked and thought he'd died.

"Emma, are you joining us?" Clark, one of the other associates, leaned on her desk. He had invited her to drinks with their colleagues a few times since she'd started work. She thought about it – worry and wait for Elliot at home, or go out for a couple of beers and try to distract herself?

Screw it, she thought to herself. She was a fairly independent woman, and had never altered herself for any guy she'd been dating before. Her recent behaviour had been skewed by an extreme dependence on Elliot's wellbeing, constantly fretting over his state of mind and body.

"Yeah, sure, just let me finish this," she said as she saved her documents and started packing up her stuff. She met them at the entrance, and they made their way together to the bar down the street, a big raucous group of twenty-somethings in New York.

"You're finally coming with us!" Jamie, a senior associate who liked to party with the juniors, whooped as he spun around, coat flaring around his legs as he turned. "TGIF, am I right? Yeah, it's the weekend!" He had insane amounts of energy for someone who had been working for the past thirteen hours, and he ran up the street and back to the group. Emma was pretty sure he was hopped up on coke.

It was some time around midnight when Elliot called her back. She'd sunk two beers and a shot of tequila, and had just about remembered that she hadn't had dinner that night. "Elliot!" She exclaimed as she answered, giggling slightly as she spoke. "Where are you?"

The group was squished into one of those old-fashioned red velvet booths, arms and legs all tangled. She sat smack in the middle, Clark on her right and Jamie on her left. " _Emma_ – _Emma, are you there? I can't hear you,_ " Elliot's voice came through the phone, low and urgent. She motioned to the group that she needed to get out, and after a bit of tripping, she walked to the outside of the bar, where it was quieter.

"Elliot, are you okay? What's wrong? Where are you?" She said into the phone, staring across the road at a sign for easy loans and biting her nails absentmindedly. " _It's kind of hard to explain,"_ Elliot said. " _Shayla's in trouble, and I'm going to help her. I – I won't be home tonight. Can you take care of Flipper? My key is in the usual place. I'll tell you everything tomorrow, okay?_ "

Emma nodded to herself, knowing that Shayla was one of Elliot's closest friends, one that he'd do anything for. Maybe even one that he loved. "Wait, Elliot – are you okay, though?" It had only been a day ago that he'd been shivering on his bed, wreaking his way through withdrawal. " _Yeah, I'm okay – I have to go now… Bye."_ He hung up abruptly.

Emma wondered what kind of trouble Shayla was in. She hated herself a little for being upset that she was relegated back to the position of dog watcher, but it did feel like Elliot always had something else pressing on his mind. She went back into the bar, where she saw the group getting up to leave. "I've got to get home – dog watching duties," she said apologetically when they asked her to move on with them to a club downtown. Clark offered to walk her home, and she hesitated for only a moment before accepting. It was pretty dangerous to walk around her neighbourhood at night – she'd been pretty sure she'd seen a couple of gang members hanging around the past couple of days.

They walked back together in companionable silence, their exhaustion from the long day of work and tipsiness from the drinks wearing down on them. Emma felt herself sobering up as she neared her apartment. She listed the things she had to do before she collapsed into bed – get Elliot's key, go into his apartment and get Flipper, hope that she didn't have to walk Flipper til the next day… She bid Clark goodbye as she unlocked her door.

He'd left his spare key with her since she was always taking care of Flipper for him. It had been an overwhelmingly sweet move, she'd thought, since he was obviously incredibly careful about who he let into his life. She pulled it out of the secret hiding place he'd stashed it in, and went to get Flipper.

Elliot's apartment was still and dark. Flipper ran up to her the moment she opened the door, whining pathetically. She'd definitely have to walk the poor, abandoned dog. Grabbing the dog's leash and a spare plastic bag, she walked back down to the street, knowing that if she didn't do it now, she'd never do it.

She sprinted with Flipper to a more populated area two blocks down, and then walked at a more leisurely pace, feeling safer with a couple of people walking past and shops still open around her. After Flipper did her business, she sprinted back to the apartment and locked the door behind her quickly. She really hated these night time walks.

Seeing that Flipper looked a little bedraggled and matted, she ran the shower and started shampooing the dog. "Oh, Flipper, your owner is kind of bad at having a dog, isn't he," she said as she rinsed the dog and saw the dirty water form a whirlpool as it drained. Flipper shook her wet fur all over her in response. She wrapped Flipper in a clean towel and dried her off as best as she could, before taking her own shower.

Later, tucked into her sheets with a snoring Flipper, she checked her messages. Nothing from Elliot, a missed call from her mom, and another missed call from an unknown number. She ignored that – she never answered or called back unknown numbers, and hadn't since her mom had sent her an article on how people could hack into her phone that way.

They probably couldn't, but she didn't want to try. She'd also taped over the camera on her computer after her mom had sent her numerous panicked messages about articles she'd read about how people could hack her computer and see what she was doing. " _Emma, they could be watching you – getting out of the shower, or something! You know…_ naked _!"_ She'd kept asking until Emma had finally taped it up.

She'd call her mom the next morning – or rather, later in the morning. It was about 3a.m., and she wondered where Elliot was. It was so weird, she knew so little about what he did on a day to day basis, and probably even less about his past, but she still felt like she understood who he was as a person.

Her dad had always told her that as long as a person had a good heart, they were good people, no matter what was going on in their lives or in their head. It had been a thought she'd clung to throughout her childhood, and something that influenced her to this day. It didn't matter what a person looked like or had – if they were good. Sometimes this confused her – how would she determine if someone was good? By their actions, or by instinct? Her instincts told her Elliot was good, but she could have been wrong.

She fell into a fitful sleep, waking up every now and then when Flipper shifted on the bed or a siren sounded outside. In the house she'd grown up in, on a hidden side street in the Upper East Side, it had been fairly quiet at night. She'd gotten used to a bit of noise in college, what with roommates and frat parties, but downtown New York was a different kettle of fish.

At eight, she got out of bed to walk Flipper again. The dog hopped happily around her legs as she pulled on her track pants and clipped the leash on. When she got back, she knocked on Elliot's door. When there was no reply, she unlocked it. Flipper needed to eat, and she'd run out of human food, let alone dog food.

"Oh my god, Elliot, are you okay?" He was curled up next to his couch and the wall, crying – sobbing, really, like the world had ended. She dropped Flipper's leash and walked the couple of steps to get to him, kneeling down and reaching out before remembering that he didn't like to be touched – she could tell from the way he sometimes flinched when she touched him and he didn't expect it.

Flipper had no such qualms. The dog ran over to Elliot and put her paws on his knee, which was clad in slightly filthy denim. Elliot put his head in his folded arms and tried to control his crying, resulting in some desperate gasps for air. Emma couldn't hold back any longer and wrapped her arms around him. "What happened, are you hurt?" She asked as her body absorbed the violence of his shaking form.

She thought back to their conversation the night before, where he'd mentioned that Shayla had been in trouble. "Is it Shayla? Did something happen to her?" He raised his head, his wide eyes red-rimmed and swollen with tears. "She's dead," he whispered through unmoving lips, in an almost disbelieving tone.

She managed to get him to sit on the couch, and brought him a glass of water. Other than that, she didn't know what to do. She didn't know if he wanted to talk about it, or forget about it, or maybe call the police – which, for the record, is what she would definitely have done if one of her friends had _died_ , but apparently in Elliot's world that wasn't even an option.

Slowly, haltingly, Elliot told her about what had happened to Shayla. Every pause in his words was accompanied by a look of such grief and pain that Emma felt like she was getting punched in the stomach. "And it's my fault," he whispered at the end. "All my fault – all of it." He had stopped crying, and he said this part almost like his voice was not a part of his body, like he was one of those mannequins that people pretended were speaking, what were they called? Ventriloquist dummies, that was it.

"It's not your fault, Elliot," Emma said, trying valiantly to absorb what he'd said, the information that someone she'd seen just the day before no longer existed on the mortal plane. That whilst she had been typing emails, or answering the phone, or drafting documents, Shayla had been breathing her last.

"I – I can't be here right now, Emma, there are too many memories," he said, looking wildly around his apartment. Emma bit her lip, running a hand gently over his arm. "Why don't you take a shower, and I'll figure something out?" She said as he pressed his face into his hands. He nodded, and started pulling off his clothes on his way to the bathroom.

When he emerged from the steamy bathroom, his hair wet and pressed against his skull, he looked so vulnerable that Emma melted. "I've gotten a car – we can go to my parents' house in the Hamptons," she offered. "Or we can go anywhere you want. Just a weekend away from all of New York, all of the memories. Does that sound good?"

Elliot looked doubtful. "And – and I think you should get away from all of this so you can get clean," Emma said nervously. "I know you were trying, that day in the motel, but I looked it up online and it takes a lot more than just one day. Depending on how long you've been on drugs. So we could use this weekend to kind of detox, you know?"

He nodded slowly. Getting away from everything that reminded him of Shayla was good. Getting out of New York was good too.

Their rental car made the two-hour drive to her parent's place in good time, with Emma distracting herself from Elliot's silence by singing along to all of cheesy pop songs on the radio. " _Stop – stop! – in the name of love, before you break my heart, think it o-o-o-over_ ," she sang, glancing over at Elliot, who was clutching a squiggly Flipper in his lap.

She took the right turn on the Montauk Highway onto Rose Hill Road and pulled up at her parents' house at the end of the lane. "Woah," Elliot said, looking up as they entered the long, winding driveway lined with trees. She parked haphazardly in front of the house, not bothering to back into the garage. "I told our housekeeper to give all the staff the weekend off, so it'll just be the two of us, okay?" She looked at Elliot, who was still staring up at the house, Flipper in his arms.

"Come on, I'll show you around," she said as she pulled her weekend bag out of the car, and he did the same, finally putting Flipper down. "The kitchen's here, and my room's next to the pool, on that side of the house," she said, walking through the empty, echoing house. "And that's the ocean, out there."

Elliot walked to the French windows leading to the veranda and lawn, and trudged all the way across the grass to the rocks lining the coast. Emma followed him, and when he sat with his legs hanging off the low cliff, she joined him. "I guess now isn't the best time to tell you I'm scared of heights and drowning, is it?" She said as she inched slightly backwards, tugging on his hand.

Elliot let her hold his hand, and they sat there, just breathing in the cold, salty air and watching the waves crash against the rocks below. When it started to get dark, she stood and pulled him up after her. "Let's get something to eat, okay? The fridge should be stocked up." He followed her in, Flipper bounding after them.

In the end, she made pasta with anchovies. It seemed appropriate for a last minute coastal escape.


End file.
